A comment by George
Broussard on the Shacknews Forums (thanks Frans and
FiringSquad) follows up on yesterday's rumors of departures from 3D Realms
that may impact the development of Duke Nukem Forever (story).
George offers a snide remark about the site's investigative journalism, and the
portion excepted below, which addresses how close the game is to completion,
while not actually denying the reported defections have occurred:

Physics
and animation systems are virtually finished and shippable. It's simply
maintenance and polish from here on out. We haven't needed to make substantial
changes to those systems in months. The changes we have made, were made without
great effort. Things are never as bleak as they appear, as is often the case
when you simply have one side of the story.

In software development, 90% of the work takes like 10% of the time. That's why super cool screenshots are always released but then the game doesn't come out for another few years. That last 10% is a killer, so I'm certainly not going to think the game is right around the corner if all that remains is "maintenance and polish".